Death Is Just Death
There is some use in death:
everybody might like you at once,
they'll name after you a dam, a resort, a hut,
you'll become interesting
like a pride parade.
It's so cool, my friends,
to hang as a bronze plaque
on a school building,
and get hit in your name
with a football.
Death is just death, no more,
it's not about respect.
Even if you are Jane Austen,
or elderly Tyson,
strange and heavy,
like a milky cap among boletuses...
To work my butt off
for a bit of posthumous fame?
Keep on doing it, but I'm fine as I am.
Poet Evgenia Jen Baranova is an author from Russia. Her most recent poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, The Raw Art Review, Persephone's Daughters, Panoplyzine, Transcend, and Triggerfish.
Translator Sergey Gerasimov lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine. His writings span the gamut from philosophical poetry to surrealism and tongue-in-cheek fantasy. His stories have appeared in Adbusters, Clarkesworld Magazine, Strange Horizons, and other venues. Also, he is the author of several novels and more than a hundred short stories published mostly in Russian.